friends of Lancaster, it is remarkable that no complete and authentic biography of this princess has ever been given to the world.

René of Anjou, the father of Margaret, was the second son of Louis II., king of Sicily and Jerusalem, duke of Calabria and Anjou, and count of Provence, by Yolante of Arragon. In 1420 René was, in his thirteenth year, espoused to Isabella, the heiress of Lorraine, who was only ten years old at the period of her nuptials. This lady, who was the direct descendant of Charlemagne, in addition to her princely patrimony, brought the beauty, the high spirit, and the imperial blood of that illustrious line into the family of Anjou. Her youngest daughter, Margaret, was in all respects a genuine scion of the Carlovingian race; she also inherited her father's love of learning, and his taste for poetry and the arts. English historians place the date of Margaret's birth in 1425; but this is a palpable error, for her mother, who was scarcely fifteen at that time, did not give birth to her eldest child, John of Calabria, till 1426.' Then came prince Louis, followed by Nicolas and Yolante, twin-children, who were born October 2, 1428. After the decease of René and his sons, Yolante took the title of queen of Sicily, as the next heir; and this circumstance, as well as her marriage-settlement, sufficiently attests the fact that she was the elder sister of our Margaret, since the dates of the birth of children having claims to a disputed succession are generally strictly authenticated by the records of their own country. Thus we see that Margaret of Anjou was four years younger than has been generally supposed. According to the best authorities, Margaret was born March 23, 1429, at Pont-à-Mousson, her mother's dower-palace, one of the grandest castles in Lorraine. She was baptized under the great crucifix in the cathedral of Toul, by the bishop of that

1 Wassaburg. Villeneuve. Chron. de Lorraine.

Again, this fact is incontestably demonstrated by the deed in which Margaret yields the reversion of her father's inheritance to Louis XI., in case the heirs of her elder sister, Yolante, should fail.

* Richard Wassaburg, a contemporary chronicler. M. de St. Marthe. Moreri. Limiers. Prevost. Villeneuve.

diocese. Her sponsors were her uncle, Louis III. king of Naples, and Marguerite duchess of Lorraine, her maternal grandmother.

Margaret was yet in the arms of her father's faithful nurse, Theophanie,' by whom she was reared, when the fierce contest for the succession to Lorraine commenced between her father and her mother's uncle, Anthony of Vaudemonte, on the death of Charles duke of Lorraine. She was scarcely two years old when her royal sire was defeated and made prisoner by his adversary, at the battle of Bulgneville. We learn from the chronicles of Lorraine, that the infant princess Margaret was her mother's companion during the agonizing hours of suspense in which she remained at Nanci, awaiting tidings of the issue of that disastrous fight. The event was too soon announced, by the arrival of the fugitives from the lost battle. "Alas!" exclaimed the duchess, clasping her little Margaret to her bosom, "where is René, my lord? He is taken-he is slain !"-" Madam," they replied, "be not thus abandoned to grief. The duke is in good health, though disabled and prisoner to the Burgundians." But the duchess was inconsolable. The council of Lorraine regarded her with the deepest sympathy, for she was left with four helpless children, two boys and two girls, the most beautiful ever seen.

With her infant Margaret in her arms, and leading her other little ones with her, the duchess Isabella presented herself as a weeping suppliant at the throne of her nominal suzerain, Charles VII., to implore his succour for the deli

1 The kind-hearted René raised a beautiful monument to this humble friend, who died in the year 1458, just as queen Margaret's troubles commenced. The good king had the effigy of his nurse carved, holding in her arms two children, himself and Queen Marie, the consort of Charles VII. of France. He added an epitaph of his own writing: the lines are very naïve and pleasing.--Vie du Roi René.

2 This prince dying without male issue, the duchy of Lorraine was claimed by his brother, Anthony of Vaudemonte, on pretence that it was a fief too noble to fall to the spindle side. René of Anjou asserted the right of his consort to the succession, which had been renounced by her two elder sisters.--Mezerai.

3" René," says the Lorraine Chronicle, "had fought like a lion, and was not overcome till he was blinded by the blood from a wound on the left brow, the scar of which he carried to the grave."

verance of her captive lord, or that he would, at least, use his mediation in behalf of the brother of his queen. Charles had no power at that time to assist any one: he was, indeed, listless and hopeless of ever regaining possession of his own rights. The interview between him and the duchess of Lorraine was destined to produce a singular effect on his future life and the fortunes of France. The disconsolate wife of René was attended by her favourite damsel, the beautiful and eloquent Agnes Sorelle, whom, when her own grief deprived her of utterance, she desired to plead for her with the king. Charles fell passionately in love with this fair advocate, who used her unbounded influence over his mind to rouse his slumbering energies for the deliverance of his subjugated realm. Meantime, while the grandmother of our little Margaret rallied the dispirited friends of René for the defence of Nanci, the duchess Isabella, the tenderest and most courageous of conjugal heroines, disappointed in the hopes she had built on the king of France, sought an interview with her hostile kinsman to solicit the release of her captive lord, and a cessation from the horrors of civil strife. Moved by her pathetic eloquence, Antoine granted a truce of six months, dated August 1, 1431. Her supplications in behalf of René were fruitless, for he had been already given up to the duke of Burgundy, by whom he was consigned to a long imprisonment at Dijon at the top of a high tower, still in existence. The only condition on which the sire of Margaret could obtain even a temporary release from his thraldom, was at the price of bestowing his eldest daughter, Yolante, then in her ninth year, on the heir of his rival, the young

Here, to dissipate the sorrow of his captivity, René employed himself in painting. The chapel of the castle of Dijon was enriched with beautiful miniatures, on painted glass, by the royal hand of the father of our Margaret of Anjou. It was this exertion of his talents that finally terminated his captivity, for Philip the Good was so much pleased with the sight of his own portrait, painted on glass by his interesting prisoner, that he sought an interview with him, clasped lum in his arms, and after expressing the greatest admiration for his talents, offered to mediate with Antoine de Vaudemonte for his liberation. This portrait, together with one of Jean sans Peur, the father of duke Philip, was placed in the window of the church of Chartreuse at Dijon, but was demolished at the French revolution of the Terror.

Ferry, or Frederic, of Vaudemonte, with part of the disputed lands of Lorraine for her portion.' The little Margaret was soon after betrothed to Pierre of Luxembourg, the son of count St. Pol, whose squire had cut René down at the battle of Bulgneville. René, being pledged to pay a heavy sum of money to the duke of Burgundy for his ransom, was obliged to give his two boys as his hostages, and to resign Yolante to her new mother-in-law; so that, of their four beautiful children, the infant Margaret was the only one who returned to Nanci with her parents. Such a meeting and such a parting as that of René with his family was never before witnessed, and the 'petite créature' Margaret, as she is called by the chroniclers of Lorraine, is said to have testified the utmost sensibility on this occasion.3

The death of the virtuous Margaret of Bavaria, the grandmother of this princess, at the close of the year 1434, increased the affliction of her family. But a heavier trial awaited Margaret and her parents. King René, being unable to fulfil the conditions of his release, was compelled to deliver himself up to his captors. His imprisonment was shared by his eldest son, Jean of Calabria: the younger, Louis, was restored to the arms of his sorrowing mother and sister. In 1436, on the death of René's eldest brother, Louis king of Naples, the succession of his realms devolved on the royal captive, and his faithful consort Isabella prepared to assert his rights. Among the illustrious females of the fifteenth century, the mother of Margaret of Anjou holds a distinguished place, alike for her commanding talents, her great personal endowments, her courage, and conjugal tenderness. It was from this parent that Margaret inherited those energies which the

1 Chronicles of Lorraine. Mezerai.

2 Monstrelet tells us, that when a peace was at last concluded, through the mediation of the duke of Burgundy, between René and the count de Vaudemont, it was agreed that the eldest son of the count should marry the eldest daughter of René, who was to give her annually six thousand francs, and a certain sumn in ready money on the day of her marriage.-Chron. de Monstrelet, vol. i. p. 611. This is sufficient proof of the primogeniture of Yolante. And again, Monstrelet mentions, soon after, the proposal for an alliance between the son of the count de St. Pol and Margaret, whom he calls one of the younger daughters of the duke of Barr, René of Anjou.-Ibid. 613. 3 Villeneuve.

sternest shocks of adversity were unable to subdue. With such a mother as Isabella of Lorraine, the patroness of Agnes Sorelle, and the contemporary of Joan of Arc, born and nurtured amidst scenes of civil warfare and domestic calamity, it is scarcely wonderful if the characteristics of Anjou's heroine partook of the temper of the times in which she was unhappily thrown.

While the queen of the Two Sicilies, as the consort of René of Anjou was now styled, was arranging her measures for asserting by force of arms the claims of her captive lord to the disputed succession of Naples, she took up her abode with Margaret and Louis at the château of Tarascon, on the banks of the Rhone. The Provençals, whose poetic feelings. were passionately excited by the advent of the consort and lovely children of their captive prince, followed them in crowds wherever they appeared, singing songs in their praise, strewing flowers at their feet, presenting them with votive wreaths, and nightly kindling bonfires before the palace, to preserve them from infection. Nostradamus adds a very marvellous story of a number of witches and evil fairies, who intruded themselves among the loyal throngs that came to gaze on those very beautiful and excellent creatures, "the infanta' Marguerite and her brother."

The fearful visitation of the plague compelled the queen of the Sicilies to hurry her precious little ones from Tarascon. She embarked with them at Marseilles for Naples, where, however, the pestilence from which they had fled at Provence was raging. The royal strangers took up their abode at Capua, the ancient palace of the family of Anjou in Naples. Queen Isabella caused her captive husband to be proclaimed king of the Two Sicilies, at which ceremony little Margaret and her brother were seated by their royal mother in the triumphal chair of state, covered with velvet and embroidered with gold, in which this conjugal heroine was borne through the streets of Naples.

René was chiefly indebted for his deliverance from bondage

1 The old Provençal writers style our Margaret of Anjou 'the infanta'.